12-year-old dies after parents did not seek medical attention for her injuries

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CHRISTINE, Texas (WJW) – A 12-year-old girl from Texas has died after she sustained serious injuries and her parents failed to provide her medical attention.

According to the Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office , dispatchers received a 9-1-1 asking for medical assistance Monday night around 8 p.m.

The mother of the child was driving on Highway 16 South and FM-140, where EMS met her and her daughter.

According to the release , the child was alive but unconscious. She was then taken to the Methodist Hospital Atascosa where she was pronounced dead at 9:55 p.m.

Investigators learned that the child received serious, life-threatening injuries on Thursday evening, four days before medical personnel were called.

Investigations found that the child’s parents did not seek medical attention, even though she was “mentally and physically incapacitated and non-responsive” the release said.

The child’s mother, 36-year-old Denise Balbaneda, and stepfather, 40-year-old Gerald Gonzales, were arrested Tuesday and charged with injury to a child by omission. They were both booked into the Atascosa County Jail.

During a Tuesday press conference , Sheriff David Soward said, “Instead of calling EMS or taking their daughter to the hospital they just left her in the house and tried tending to her, but she was primarily unconscious, unresponsive, incapacitated.”

According to the release , it appears Balbaneda called 9-1-1 when the child went into respiratory distress.

Soward said the parents did try at-home remedies including trying to give her a smoothie with some vitamins. “Of course, for somebody that’s unconscious, that’s hard to do,” he said.

The victim was a Jourdanton Jr. High School cheerleader.

The bond for Balbaneda and Gonzales was set at $200,000 each.

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